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‘Rebecca’ Tale Continues

The story of “Rebecca” – the aborted Broadway play with a mysterious donor – now includes criminal investigators.

The play was expected to open this fall but an investor died, taking with him $4.5 million in startup money. The New York Times made hay of the matter because the investor, Paul Abrams, was said to have died of malaria in London but the newspaper could not find any evidence the man ever existed.

 
It was unusual enough that the play was funded by someone unknown to Broadway veterans, much less someone who could not be verified to be of this planet.
 
It was also unusual that the show producer, Ben Sprecher, was not a Broadway veteran but rather an Off Broadway landlord making his bones on the Great White Way. He admitted that he had never spoken with or met Abrams.
 
One day after the show’s demise, investors and actors were among those consulting attorneys to protect themselves financially and possibly pursuing their own legal action, according to the Times. Meanwhile, an attorney for Sprecher told the paper criminal investigators have interviewed his client.
 
The attorney declined to identify the law enforcement agency but said Sprecher was cooperating in the inquiry into the collapse of the $12 million show.
 
The latest wrinkle includes a new investor, equally mysterious, who pledged $2 million to the show. However, this investor apparently received an email from “an unnamed person” who said the musical was a bad investment and suggested Abrams was a creation of Sprecher.
 
Sprecher’s attorney, Ronald Russo, told the Times he believes his client’s computer may have been hacked and confidential emails stolen “as part of some kind of plot to scare off investors and doom the show.” 
 
Russo provided a copy of the email to the unnamed investor. He believes the investor’s email address was obtained illegitimately.
 
“The investor’s name was supposed to be completely confidential, so when he opened this email on Friday, he nearly fell off his chair,” Russo told the Times. “And he wondered; ‘Who the hell is this guy Sprecher? I told him not to tell anyone about me.’”
 
Russo said Sprecher is devastated by the allegation he created Abrams out of whole cloth. Rather, Sprecher was introduced to Abrams by a third party who was helping to raise money for the show, and that third party may become a part of the criminal inquiry.
 
“Very shortly we’ll learn whether there was a Paul Abrams, and whether or not he died, as Ben Sprecher was told,” Russo said. “But I can tell you with certainty that if there was no Paul Abrams, Ben Sprecher had absolutely no idea that this was made up. Ben Sprecher is blameless.”
 
The third party turned out to be Mark Hotton of Long Island who has a history of civil fraud complaints and filed personal bankruptcy protection last year, according to the paper. He was sued for fraud in recent years, with plaintiffs alleging Hotton and his wife tricked them with false info artifcially inflating their worth.
 
His bankruptcy filing showed more than $1 million owed in loans on four boats, and several million dollars in business-related debts and settlements, the Times said. Hotton did not respond to the Times’ request for comment.
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